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POPSTea Party Movement's New Target :The GOP
They feel they were had by former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), who urged them to stomach earmarks for the good of the party; by George W. Bush adviser Karl Rove, who urged them to stomach a massive expansion of education and Medicare for the good of the party; and by the rest of the Washington gang that collaborated in the largest expansion of government in their lifetime for the good of the party. Erick Erickson, founder and editor of the conservative RedState blog, said grass-roots activists are done listening. “Republicans are going to have to come our way,” he said, before going on to trash NRCC Chairman Pete Sessions and Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele for backing Scozzafava. Their “level of disingenuousness ... is disgusting,” Erickson said. His influential blog is now calling for Sessions to get the boot from the NRCC as a penalty for mishandling the race. Erickson’s bombast may seem overboard, but it captures the dep
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POPSStop C-17 Earmark Theft by US Senate Maybe we can make change but the US Senate is slow to change when it comes to pocket change for campaign coffers and paybacks by the millions to contributor companies for goods no one in Department of Defense wants. Add to this that troops sometimes have to get relatives and friends to buy body armor for them that the DOD can't "afford" to supply them with and it makes you wonder how some of these out of touch US Senators sleep well at night.
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POPSSenate Still Addicted to Earmarking Billions for Unwanted Defense Spending Senators often like to brag how much they support the military but what they are actually doing is supporting companies that produce military hardware and services by taking money away from needed defense spending and support of troops and giving it to stockholders of profiteering companies and in a number of cases to their own former employees.
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POPSWho's Funding Your Politician? Great place to check up on who is influencing our members of congress and the senate and compare it to the votes they make. Glad to see Ron Paul is not a shill, yet has more money on hand... REPRESENTATIVE (R - TX) Ron Paul Industry Total Indivs PACs Health Professionals $2,000 $1,000 $1,000 Real Estate $1,000 $0 $1,000 Retired $500 $500 $0 $0 $0 $0
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POPSSubstance or Teenage Angst? If the allegations are true it would be criminal to disregard them. Yet, the more I follow this story the more I lean to the idea that this is a case of a teenage girl who is confused and has taken steps that make it difficult for her to retract. The most disturbing news to come out of the whole drama is the inclusion of the lawyer who was elemental in the political debauchery surrounding the Terri Schiavo case. The conservatives in Florida seem to have a natural talent of stepping in a pile of dog poo and then flinging it at anyone close by. Considering the underlying mistrust of Muslims that brews among conservatives this incident has the earmarks of being capable of evolving into a major political slime-fest.
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POPSMaxing Out The Race Card In contrast, what has Barack Obama done since becoming president? " Increased taxes to pay for the S-CHIP expansion, supported a cap and trade bill that amounts to a $1,500 to $4,000 tax increase on every American family, and has discussed tax increase to pay for his health care scheme. " Spending increases " a massive “stimulus,” a massive expenditure bill with 9,000 earmarks, and his trillion dollar plus health care scheme, $9 Trillion in deficit spending. " Government programs as morality, i.e. “God wants you to support nationalized health care.”) " Government funding and promotion of abortions " Mandates to buy health insurance " Appointing those who don’t pay their taxes and should to Cabinet and key advisory positions.
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POPSDear Mr. President: Clean Up This Inhumane Mess; Now! You did not create this ugly mess of detention centers that has all the earmarks of being as bad as Walter Reed was for veterans. Place a priority on it and clean up and establish visible and enforceable rules of humane conduct in pubic and for-profit private facilities!
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POPSRabid Hyenas Snarling Over Earmarks On House Floor Fellow dems had to separate Rep. David Obey and Rep. Maxine Waters who were engaged in an earmark shouting match. The Politico reported Obey-Waters clash on House floor UPDATED House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wisc.) and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) engaged in a late afternoon shouting match on the House floor after Obey reportedly rebuffed Waters on a $1 million earmark request, aides and witnesses said. Witnesses, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it appeared that Waters pushed or shoved Obey. The pair were seen shouting at each other and had to be separated by members -- who were gathered on the floor casting final votes before heading off to a party at the White House.
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POPSDemocrats, ages 70, wrestle in Congress Are you ready to rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrumble? She said he touched her first. Obey had categorized the earmark as one of those inappropriate Monuments to Me appropriations. Uh, uh, said a Waters staffer who told Politico that the center was named after Waters before she became a congresswomen, so there. Each turns 71 later this year.
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POPSObama to Spend $1 Billion on FutureGen
The Department of Energy on Friday announced that the FutureGen project is on track after all, committing federal stimulus money to advance the project to its next stage. One reason: It was the only shovel-ready project that fits the requirements of the stimulus bill. Administration officials and the project’s other big backer, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), insist that’s not an earmark at all, as promised " because the stimulus bill doesn’t specifically name the FutureGen project as a recipient of the money. But others say that’s a distinction without a difference " that FutureGen is merely an earmark by another name, a project that had powerful patrons, funding straight out of the stimulus bill and requirements for the money targeted so narrowly that only a few projects would fit the bill. The funding is attracting harsh criticism from Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who will release a report Tuesday blasting 100 wasteful projects in the federal stimulus spending.
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POPSMurtha going down? Long-term power-mongers like this merit close scrutiny. Raw power-seeking itself is corrupt, whether from a Republican or a Democrat.
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POPSQuestions I'd like 'Teabaggers to answer
clipped from Matt Taibbi's blog-he also went on to state that a number of people wrote and complained that the only reason he wasn't seeing eye to eye with them is that he has no children and therefore doesn't care about debt burden in the future-he went on to state that the only reason that children are in the debate at all is because about 95% of the people protesting the tax outrage will actually be getting a tax break-and til the question of why future government debt burdens didn't bother them during the last 8 years of massive deficit spending- the whole "O the children!" b.s. needs to be put on the back shelf-or why? is it ok to spend billions handing out soccer balls in the Anbar province-but a waste when we build bridges in Peoria and Tulsa-Matt wants to know-and i would like an answer to this as welland while most 'teabaggers are hypocrites-it doesn't necessarily make them wrong to question Obamas budget-just loose the victims of fascism and tyranny-or threats to secede
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POPSTeabag or not teabag? cont'd, Even conservative economists such as Martin Feldstein, Ronald Reagan's chief economic adviser, agree government spending is necessary right now. But why let facts get in the way of a great tea party? Fortunately, the majority of the American people, just like the majority of voters last November, get it. In a recent New York Times/CBS News poll 63 percent of Americans think President Obama would be more likely to make the right decisions on the economy as opposed to 20 percent who favor the Republicans in Congress. Most Americans have learned the lessons of the Republicans' horrendous fiscal mismanagement. Turning to old Republican ideas on the economy is like seeking investment advice from Bernie Madoff. It doesn't stop there. A brand new Gallup Poll finds 48 percent of Americans think the taxes they pay are 'about right' while 46 percent think they're too high. The 48 percent is the one of the highest scores in more than 50
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POPSDear Mr. President by Jim Johnson Dear Mr. President by Jim Johnson (continued) . Why do you keep appointing people to your staff that aren't even capable of handling their own personal financial affairs? For instance, you appointed a man to the Secretary of Treasurer and to head IRS that couldn't pay his own taxes using the best computer run tax system around. . Why are you intent on using our hard earned tax money to keep bailing out financial companies that should have gone into bankruptcy? That wouldn't have cost the taxpayers any money and would have solved our economy problems a lot faster. . Why did you sign the last bill that had over 8,500 earmarks when you campaigned against it? Were you afraid of alienated members of your party in Congress rather than working for the American people? . You signed your stimulus bill which you assured the American people
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POPSEarmarks of Scandal There’s plenty of questions to answer. The firm was led by Paul Magliocchetti, a former appropriations staffer and Murtha protégé who wined and dined his former bosses and comrades with abandon. These raucous dinners and big expense-account tabs should be vetted for ethics violations. Of course, it didn’t stop with steaks and fine wines. PMA funneled more than $40 million in donations to members of Congress since 1998, including $2.4 million to Mr. Murtha and $7.8 million to members of his committee. Congress, in turn, rewarded PMA clients with rarely debated earmarks. Last year, the firm was able to marshal more than 100 lawmakers to earmark $300 million in contracts for the lobbyist’s clients. Ms. Pelosi cannot ignore this sorry churn of taxpayer money. Newcomers and moderates are right in warning that if the House majority doesn’t police itself, it will lose credibility all the way to the next election.
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POPSPublic Financing of Elections Dead - McCain There is some poetic justice that the "architect" of such a miserable piece of legislation should find himself on the losing end of a race where his opponent thumbed his nose at the law. But the fact that the man who was the chief beneficiary of McCain's stupidity is a far left liberal who is seeking to alter America doesn't give any satisfaction. Every attempt by McCain to establish himself as some kind of leader in the Republican party since his defeat has failed. He is a pariah of a politician and most Republican senators want little to do with him. But he will remain popular with his friends (re-found friends now that he's just another senator) in the media as long as he keeps trashing conservatives and members of his own party. It's a role he seems very comfortable playing. I just hope he likes solitude.
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